Yuki is a senior reporter at Mergermarket and covers growth strategies and M&A activity among Japan’s tech, defense, and space companies. Prior to joining Mergermarket, she spent over a decade at Bloomberg, where she covered manufacturing and financial sectors as well as regulatory authorities. During her time there, she interviewed many of Japan’s most influential CEOs as well as key political figures, including prime ministers. She began her career in television and served as Los Angeles bureau chief for Fuji TV.

Mr. Ishihara currently serves as the deal leader for Kensetsu-Park Co., Ltd and a deal member for HOKUTO Co., Ltd. in Sunrise IV. Previously, he also served as the deal leader (previously also interim representative director) for Uni-Mate, Inc. in Sunrise III. Prior to joining the Sunrise team in March 2017, he was most recently with Lincoln International Inc. as a Managing Director, where he led the origination and execution of various domestic and cross-border M&A transactions, engaged in extensive due diligence activities as well as prepared legal/IR documentations. Prior to that, he was an Associate at Citigroup Global Markets Japan Inc., Daiwa Securities SMBC Co. Ltd., and Okasan Securities Ltd., respectively. Mr. Ishihara holds a B.A. in Economics from Yokohama National University and a M.S. in Administrative Studies from Boston University. 

Takako is a leader in the Strategy & Corporate Development in Japan. She has more than 20 years of experience developing strategic business models and M&A integration / separation planning for domestic and international clients in wide range of industries. She works primarily with broader Manufacturing and Auto companies on strategy and M&A topics. 

Her experience in M&A stretches across the entire process, from strategy and theme definition to target selection, due diligence, synergetic assessment, and post-merger management for both domestic and cross-border transactions. 

Prior to joining IBM, she worked for KPMG FAS, Booz Allen Hamilton, GE Capital, and Intel based in the US and Tokyo. She leveraged in-depth knowledge of North American, Asian, and Japanese markets in order to provide astute and productive business consulting to clients. She worked on integration / separation projects for clients across North America, Europe, Asia, and Japan. 

Professional Experience 

Market Assessment, Business Due Diligence, and Visioning & Strategic Planning 

Provided assessments of the growth prospects and value creations of the target company through analysis of the overall addressable market and adoption rate as well as target-specific ramp-up issues and challenges. 

Value-Driven Post-Merger Integrations 

Led the overall PMI strategy, Day1 / Day 100 planning, value creation planning, and execution for clients undergoing merger. Included support to attain operational excellence for the continuous improvement of client operations. 

Separations / Carve-outs 

Helped client management teams work through their exit strategy decisions. Conducted separation due diligence to contain carve-out costs and identify savings. Supported structure and run the operational carve-out, IT separation, and divestiture process. 

Function and Specialization 

Takako is leading the IBM Japan M&A initiatives as part of IBM global transformation activities called “Transform to Glow” focused on strategic partnerships and acquisitions how IBM Consulting Japan collaborates with strategic partners and the broader ecosystem, while also investing in acquisitions to augment capabilities. 

Hiroyuki Otsuka is the Founder and CEO of Japan Activation Capital.

Japan Activation Capital, newly established in Oct 2023 by Mr. Otsuka, is new concept fund in Japan which invest into large to mid Japanese public companies with minority stake, and support companies’ sustainable growth as an insider to portfolio companies with buyout fund value creation style. The fund already raised JPY210bn (roughly $1.5bn) from Japanese large financial and institutions and continuing to raise more capital from domestic and global LPs. 

Before founding Japan Activation Capital, he was the Deputy Head of Carlyle Japan and Partner and Managing Director leading the Carlyle’s Japanese buyout fund operation and managing all carve-out deals. During his tenure at Carlyle from 2001 to 2002 and 2006 to 2023, Mr. Otsuka has driven number of significant transactions and served as a board of director at many portfolio companies and created value to portfolio companies and supporting their transformation to achieve sustainable growth, which include Totoku Inc. (previously a listed subsidiary of Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd.), Tsubaki Nakashima Co., Ltd., Chimney Co., Ltd., and Senqcia Inc. (previously a listed subsidiary of Hitachi Metal Co., Ltd.). Thanks to his contribution with the team, he brought Carlyle Japan Buyout fund as top tier performance funds amongst Carlyle sister funds and the region. 

Prior to Carlyle, he was Managing Director at Lazard and worked at their New York headquarters as well as in Japan (COO of Japan operation), leading multiple cross border and domestic transactions. Mr. Otsuka began his first career at Sumitomo Bank (currently Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation) in 1992.  

He also served as an independent board member of DeNA Co., Ltd. (TSE Prime Market listed) from 2015 to 2019. 

Mr. Otsuka was a member of the “Fair Acquisition” (2023) and “Challenges for M&A in Japan and Case Studies” (2022/2023) study groups formed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Currently, he is a member of Japan Association of Corporate Executives.  

Mr. Otsuka received his post-graduate degree from Oxford University and his B.A. from Waseda University.

As Head of Corporate Office (Japan), Hirotatsu Tanji is responsible for all activities in Japan including well-being business by OCTAVE, M&A, co-investment by TPC Group, and shipping related business by IMC.

He comes with more than 26 years of experience in the infrastructure / real estate and banking industry including 17 years of intensive experience in investment and asset management for real estate in foreign and Japanese private funds and public funds. 

He spent his career in several Japanese companies and foreign companies such as mapletree logistics trust (Singapore), Challenger group (Australia) and LaSalle Investment Management (US) based in Japan.  He has plenty of experience and knowledge for investment and asset management for various types of real estate including logistics, commercial, residential, hotel, student dormitory, nursing home, and office.

Before joining TPC Group, he was Managing Director at SBI Tozai Realty Advisors Co., Ltd. and led the inbound / outbound department as a third-party asset manager for various foreign investors.

He holds a Master of Business Administration in Global Management from Thunderbird School of Global management in US and a Bachelor of Economics from Gakushuin University in Japan.